Playing the Build & Adjustments

The build is designed to Disintegrate with near-infinite Arcane Power using a slow 2Hander. (Arcanot + Astral Presence is the best combination of resource management for this). Everything else is a passive effect to improve your performance, and a single spell for “emergencies”.

Disintegrate – Chaos Nexus – This is just too good that you barely need anything else to kill enemies! Chaos Nexus is used purely for saving time (trust me, it’s better than Volatility).

Meteor – Molten Impact – This is just here to help you out when you are surrounded or just to ax a large amount of life from that elite.

Overall, there’s nothing special goin’ on here. Lots of passive effects, brainless residual AoE damage and very good single target DPS.

After that, everyone progresses a bit differently and below are adjustments you can make to cover the weak points of your current setup.

Offense & ResourceDefense & HealingSpeed & Mobility

More offense or Arcane needed?

Offense is usually categorized in Damage or, indirectly, Resource Gain.

Honestly, I don’t think there is a practical way to increase offense right now without finding a game-changing legendary of some sort. Familiar – Sparkflint is a straight % dmg up (at the cost of significant resource gain, losing Arcanot rune)

Resource generation… there’s a lot of options. The first skill to replace in our kit would be Storm Armor – Reactive armor, as it’s just a source for bonus brainless damage.

Setting up!

Equip your Wizard with level 70 gear! Craft your yellows or pick them up IDC, make sure that they all have Intelligence! It wouldn’t hurt if they have Vit in them,as well.

Disintegrate% in boots or helm is crazy value for the low cost of a few dusts and crystals.

Fire% is nice to have on bracer and/or amulet. Try to get at least one!

Other re-rolls: Crit on helm,accessories and glove. Crit damage is optional at this point. Get as many sockets as you can in preparation for Legendary gems.

DON’T BE AFRAID TO RE-ROLL YELLOWS. It’s cheap and the effects are staggering. Not all legendaries are better than yellows at this point! Crafted or swiped off the ground, keep an eye out for yellows you can turn into solid fillers. But don’t try and make the PERFECT yellow…

Templar: Why go through all the bounties, nephs and GRs alone when you can hire Templar?! You get free healing, Arcane Regen, and damage from him. So, abuse the hell out of him!

Gaining Power!

Unlocking Kanai’s Cube

Unlocking your Kanai’s Cube early on once you get to level 70 is imperative. Not only can you use 3 extra legendary powers, you can also upgrade your yellows and turn them into legendaries!

Getting your legendary gems

Bane of Powerful– is one of the best filler gems to keep at 25~. great until late game. You don’t need to upgrade this too high, and you can focus on other gems in the meantime.

Bane of the Trapped– One of the best gems – so level this up as high as you want! Quite brainless to trigger it since Wiz is pretty much in “melee” most of the time (Templar takes care of it the rest of the time).

Taeguk– amazing synergy with Wizard. It’s a great choice at this point since you need damage and toughness to get up in the torments.

Items to look for

So now, you should be on the hunt for set items, or certain generically powerful legendaries to help give you some serious power ups.

Halo of Arlyse is a notable ring for Wizards, although I wouldn’t suggest to get it from Kadala or Death’s Breath upgrade as you’ll have a low chance of seeing it.

Blood ShardsDeath's BreathClassics

Using Blood Shards:

The main use of blood shards this early on is to find set pieces. Getting a 2, 4 and of course 6 set bonus is the biggest power gain you will get. Along the way, you’ll be getting some random legendaries with, uh, indeterminate usefulness…

Orb/Source: a number of these will greatly improve your power once you find ‘em.

Etched Sigil– The single most powerful thing you can get from 25 blood shards. It’s absurd legendary power is worth a 4 or 6 set, yet here it is. Meteor Shower, Twisters… have fun with it. No matter what skill you pair up with Disintegrate, you’ll see huge results.

Bracer: Ashnagarr’s Blood Bracer – a noteworthy bracer for Wizard as it increases shields. Use it with Galvanizing Ward and Dominance passives. This ONE item and a passive or two will take care of all the toughness you need in this point of the game.

In-geom – One of the classic speedfarm items. Great for the Wizards speedfarming set.

The Twisted Sword – Deserves a special mention… this is absurdly powerful but a bit difficult to use fresh off the 70 boat. You should definitely aim to own one as soon as possible though, cause once your build can support it… Oh boy.

Bridging to the End-game

D3 end-game basically consists 2 main objectives: Clearing high-level Greater Rifts, and Speedfarming. I recommended building up your speed-farming set, first. Let’s be realistic though, speed-farming is more about tweaking what you have RIGHT NOW!

I’ve been following this guide for about a week now and compared to “competitors” builds, I find this one the most enjoyable. But I’ve seen to hit a rough spot, and I’m stuck hovering between T5-T7. Unfortunately I didn’t come accross this guide until I already progressed a little bit so my rolls aren’t perfect. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Well that would first depend on your personal goals. If you’re “stuck”, you should first find out where you’re progressing. What do you envision it is your goal this season would be? The free set is meant to be a free set, and you don’t need to STICK with it to the end – the build entailed in the fresh 70 guide will help you along to reach to “point of freedom”. Let me know what exactly is keeping you down? Survivability? Speed in clearing? What’s your goals this season?